Last month in PPM, I outlined my new ratings approach for making your selections for greyhound racing. By using the ratings approach, you will boost your prospects of making money from such betting.

Over the years, readers have asked me about how to bet the selections they make at the dogs, the general complaint being that short prices mean a level-stakes profit is unattainable.

My answer is that the greyhound punter needs to use some form of all-up betting in order to get an edge.

That is, think in terms of ONE bet actually comprising TWO dogs. When you cover a meeting you can divide the 10 races into five lots of two, mixing any races you like.

My personal preference is for the two best bets to be linked, then the next best pair and so on. Bet the most money on the best chances.

Example: The top-rated dog in race 1, say, is priced at 2/1. The next top-rated dog of the meeting is a 5 / 2 chance. These will comprise ONE BET, an all-up, taken on the TAB or at the track via bookmakers.

Let's say you have a TAB all-up and the dogs ended up paying $2.75 and $3, a little below their morning line odds (very likely to happen). Your bet of, say, $10 is going to return you $82.50, a profit of $72.50.

Get the idea? You have backed two dogs in one bet at 7/4 and 2/1 and you've turned them into one 7/1 bet. Not bad.

Other letter writers, recently and in the past, have asked me about how to convert a dog's times from one track to another. If, say, a dog can run 25.99s to win over 457m at the Gold Coast, what time is it likely to run at, say, Albion Park over 520m?

This is a tough one. All tracks vary to some degree; they have different surfaces, different bend cambers, and so on. However, as a rule of thumb we can use straightforward calculation to get a rough estimate of how a time at one track might translate to another.

Example: Let's look at Blaze Ablaze, a runner in a 520m race at Albion Park in Brisbane on December 2. He won in 25.99s over 457m at the Gold Coast on November 3 and was stepping out for his debut run at Albion Park.

To find the time he MIGHT be able to carve out at AP, we do the following:

We divide his time at the Gold Coast by the distance of that race, 457m. That is, 25.99s divided by 457. This gives us 0.0568708. This is how fast the dog travelled. Now we multiply that figure by 520m (the distance at Albion Park) and this translates to a time of 29.57s.

Now, whether it would be possible for Blaze Ablaze to run such a fast time at Albion Park is something we have to discover by the only means possible - the race itself.

It could be that we have to ADJUST the Gold Coast time to allow for the fact that the 457m course has only one sweeping turn. How much to adjust? Again, this is something that could only be determined by comparisons of thousands of races.

Despite all this, I do feel that you can use this conversion technique to at least give yourself some sort of guide. If you feel that a converted time looks too fast for the current track, then simply make an adjustment of a certain number of lengths.

You may get it wrong sometimes, but you'll also get it right, hopefully enough times to make it a worthwhile exercise.

I had some correspondence, too, from readers who wanted more information about the availability of form on the Internet. I've already mentioned the excellent Pearson family site at www.tabform.com.au

This is recommended for those punters who want to obtain as much information as possible.

For free Queensland form, but not with in-the-running details, you can go to www.graq.org.au

This excellent site provides very good form for Queensland tracks. The file doesn't have to be ownloaded. You simply print it straight off the Net page.

There are quite a few good greyhound racing sites covering the Australian scene. You can find them fairly easily by going to the Greyhound Racing Authority of Queensland site and checking the links. Once you've made one leap, you can go from site to site.

Click here to read Part 1.
Click here to read Part 2.

By George ‘Barker’ Bellfield

PRACTICAL PUNTING – JANUARY 2000